Observations post-residency... day 2

I kind of feel like the fog is beginning to lift and I can begin to process and reflect on the past month of busy completion of residency and on the last 4 years in general. Observations on day 2...

I was driving to meet Ryan for dinner and found myself stuck in traffic. I asked Ryan if he knew of an accident close to our restaurant... and then realized that this was probably NORMAL rush hour traffic that I've rarely experienced while working early and late hours.

I was sifting through a pile which had been designated, "Shannon's stuff," in all of the hubbub of moving/packing/sorting, and I found... my license to be a doctor for the coming year, membership for an OB/GYN group, insurance information, chocolate, flowers. :) You know, the inconsequential items. It is amazing what can be set aside when you are pushing for the finish line. I'm not sure my physician's license was something that 'hinders' (from the verse in Hebrews that says, " let us throw off everything that hinders.. and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.") but at least it was something I did not need for my last few weeks in residency. The flowers were a sweet gift for my last day at work from Ryan. I took a picture of them so that I could enjoy them at work.

I just noted another date night on our shared google calendars. Google calendars has made our marriage much easier. We don't have to talk or communicate as much. :) If it is on the calendar, that is what we are doing. If there is nothing on the calendar- we can fill it with something and hopefully tell each other what we volunteered them for or who we are going to dinner with next Saturday. But on a more serious note, that intentionality of putting "marriage" on the calendar or to-do list has been very important to us. If we don't work at it and spend time thinking about each other and what we can do to make the relationship better, we will drift apart. I cannot tell you how many times when I was desperate to sleep or just quickly finish one more thing that Ryan gently reminded me that we needed to focus on our marriage. He sent me invites for date nights. Though many times that meant we simply went on a walk after eating dinner at home, it was a reminder that we needed to focus on each other. And we got formal marriage counseling. Not because things were terrible, but because we knew things could be better, and because it was a formal time to get together and talk about our marriage. With all the emphasis on pre-marital counseling, I think both of us wish that plain old marital counseling would be more of a normal thing. To borrow and illustration from our medical school marriage mentors, it is much better to get vaccines and to use bandaids and first aid ointment rather than waiting until an abscesses forms and the infection requires a visit to the ER. In the same way, it is better to go to counseling as preventative maintenance than waiting until you are on the brink of divorce. We are certainly not perfect, and we readily admit that counseling has helped keep our marriage strong through the adversity of medical school and residency and our first child. We hope more people will find this worthwhile and invest now in their marriages. I'm so thankful for it.

End of an Era... almost

It has been 25 years since I started school in Kindergarten, and now I'm finally done. I graduated on June 21st after 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, and 4 years of OB/GYN residency. I took my written board exam on June 30th. So I'm done! Except I'm going to start French school in September. And I still have oral board exams in 3 years when I return to the US. And there is always continuing medical education. And re-accreditation exams. So I guess when they told us at our entry into medical school that we should be life-long learners, that was very true. However, the formal, consuming, intense training is over and for that, Ryan is very grateful.

Ha! I'm very grateful too. I just realize how much he has had to put up with, especially after having a baby. And as I enter into a season of life where I have some time to reflect, I am sure I will have a lot more to say about residency. It was so rich, but so intense. I thought I might be utterly relieved when the pressure was off, but to be honest, I feel like I'm floundering a bit. It's like I was a goldfish in a bowl with piranhas nipping at my tail, but now I'm released into an ocean and there are still dangers out there, but it is hard to know where to start. I started out getting sick and sleeping the whole first day. Today I read emails- still had some unread from February! I updated Facebook. I'm updating the blog. Zoe will get updated on her overdue vaccinations before we give her to her new family. And hopefully, I can start packing for our move and our long roadtrips to see family. The end of an era is simply marking the beginning of a new one.